MOBAs are a big business. Look at Valve’s Dota 2 which manages to pull in $18 million a month in revenue alone, and let’s not forget Riot Games’ League of Legends which manages an average of over $100 million a month. What makes this so impressive is the fact that these games are free to play, meaning that the money made is from selling in-game items to players, such as cosmetics and vanity items.
However the question is, how will the MOBA genre hold up against the MMORPG genre which has been around much longer? As it turns out chances are that 2015 could be the year in which MOBAs could very well overtake MMORPGs. This is according to EEDAR analyst Ed Zhao who predicts that this year could be when MOBAs outdo F2P MMORPGs in revenue.
Like we said, this is based on MMORPGs that are free to play, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic which a couple of years ago changed from a subscription-based model to a free to play one. One of the reasons Zhao expects MOBAs to overtake F2P MMORPGs is because of the competitive nature of the genre. This means that players will need to learn to specialize in a particular character versus experimenting, which in turn could lead players to investing more time and could lead to purchase of vanity items.
Unlocking heroes is also apparently a viable way to make money. For example Blizzard’s upcoming Heroes of the Storm will not have every character available at the start, and gamers will need to pay money to unlock these heroes and their respective skins. It’s an interesting shift but what do you guys think? Do you think MOBAs have the potential to outearn MMORPGs?
Filed in . Read more about Dota 2 and League Of Legends.